


Adolescence and other Broken Things

by Glitteredwithstars



Category: Andi Mack (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 00:37:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,535
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18083996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitteredwithstars/pseuds/Glitteredwithstars
Summary: T.J. learns that growing up and loosing your innocence go hand in hand. But he also learns that there are others that help along the way.





	Adolescence and other Broken Things

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Comments are love<3

He is six and joyous. His hair is sandy and shaggy, and his tan complexion brings out the blue in his eyes, at least that is what his mother tells him. He goes to the to the gym with his father every Saturday- “daddy, daddy, daddy, please one more game? And he’ll always agree, because anything for his son right?

(It’s a time of laughter and innocence, and beauty in the way his mothers cheeks go pink, whenever his father enters a room)

(It’s a time before brokenness, heartbreak, and the shattering of life before him)  
•••  
He is eight when he decides that basketball is his favorite sport. He is eight when he begins making decisions for himself, and not anyone else. He is eight when he first sees his fathers rough knuckles graze the jaw of his mother. He is eight and is growing up a lot faster than he should be.  
•••  
He is two years older, he is wiser, taller, and had cut his shaggy hair. He is in his final year of elementary and every day he walks to and from school by himself. This is the year he stops asking his mom if dad is coming back. The answer is clear. Despite her numb-less sobs most nights heard in late of night- trying to keep silent. He’ll hear her cry into the home phone, dialing the numbers that have inked their way onto her heart, saying the things that she wished would have kept her husband around in the first place, but is always met with silence.

He is only ten and thinks his mother is foolish.  
•••  
When he is twelve, he is suddenly overwhelmed when he sees the scrawny, dark haired boy. The boys a pretty sight. He is smiling from ear to ear and is sandwiched between two girls. Their arms are inter locked with his, and they’re all laughing about something he didn’t know. 

They are in their first year of middle school, and he feels like he’s missing out. He never put effort into relationships, because he knew how they could turn sour in the flash of a second. 

But he thinks they would be good friends.  
•••  
He is thirteen and learns and grows. He spends most of his time in the Goodman’s home. It’s spacious, and comfortable, and has the sense that love is present, it feels like home. He sees his best friends parents and wonders. Maybe they had just been lucky, the rare ones. 

He finds a group of friends that he cares deeply for. It started with Cyrus introducing a certain, athletic and competitive girl, one he learns he shares a common interest with, and then Andi and Jonah to follow. They are funny and silly, and everything he needs to keep is mind off the things that have consumed his mind for so long.

He also has a knack for art. It’s all in the way his pencil glides over the paper, how he is in control of what he brings to life, it’s all simple satisfaction. He draws things he sees, the things that are evident, and some that are not. He doodles the moon, or sketches the dark haired boy that has become his friend. He paints the bar that his mother usually finds herself at most days, drinking to escape the troubles that reality brings. And when Jonah asks why there is a woman all alone, drink in hand, a spark of the past is rekindled, regardless of the way Cyrus elbows him in the side. 

It’s deeper ignited when Andi had tried talking to him, not fully understand his relationship with his parents and the brokenness that was deep rooted in the past. He dismisses her naivety, because she is lucky to still have her innocence and a heart that continues to grow as every second passes

(How he wished he was the same)

In his class he tends to paint the portrait of that same lady, his mother. Sometimes she will be a glowing goddess, long flowing hair and eyes that beam. And he won’t mind his teacher looming over him, commenting on the way he so resembles the woman in front of him, as his brush casually drenches in the acrylics. And on the days when he T.J. lacks a seat partner because Jonah is sick, his mood will shift and so will the tone of his paintings. This time he’ll draw his mother with graying hair, and wrinkles along her forehead, and her eyes with a dead bleakness. Her skin would sometimes be streaked with black and blue, and a purple puckered over one swollen eye. 

And as his teacher walks over he’ll spill the paints over the truth, pretending it was an accident. And little does he know that Cyrus is silently watching his little routine. 

•••  
He is fifteen when he has his first kiss. It happens under the October sun, the rays peaking in through the classroom blinds. It’s during detention, and is sweet and unexpected. The boy was attractive, Tj had always known he’d preferred boys and was comfortable with his sexuality. He has dark hair and eyes to match, and secretly reminds T.J. of a specific best friend. T.J. Finds himself smiling after the fact.

He is fifteen and finds out a new way of temporary escape, involving a pair of lips and shaggy hair. It’s away for him to further delve into a state of destruction and delusion. 

His name was Marty, but he finds out he won’t care to remember it anyway.  
•••

He is sixteen and refuses to allow himself to grow anymore. Because it leads to reality and that is too much to take.

He sixteen, and he does, does, does

He stops listening, stops accepting and obeying. Not that he’d been known for doing any of these things in his past.

He cuts class three times a week and when Cyrus finds him with a joint in between his teeth and a lighter in his hands, he remembers an eerily similar phase that happened during middle school. He stomps over and and crushes the drugs with a stamp of his foot. The circumstances are all different though, and he thinks that Cyrus understands, but is too afraid to poke the bear.

And then he is screaming the shit out of him. Because even though he is sixteen, he has still been carrying around this unwieldy optimism for him since they were thirteen, his crazy crazy desire to make him okay.  
And T.j spits it back, his words laced with venom and hurt. He’s older and tired of trying to better himself, all for the sake of someone else. His tone is rough and is a foreign sound to Cyrus’s ears.

T.J. tells Cyrus he doesn’t need him.  
He takes his best friend for granted because his mother has come around in five months, and he needs someone to let all his anger out on. 

He turns his back as he walks out of the bathroom without a word spoken.  
•••  
At seventeen he stops playing basketball and drops everything that he once loved, including his friends. 

His hair is grown out again, and falls in his face. He kisses boys that don’t matter and drinks drinks that make him feel numb in the head and the heart. 

( he is Tj and has become good at breaking hearts, involving his own$

He ignores people ( ones that have the potential to carry something meaningful in his life)

He’s afraid that he’ll loose everything again.  
•••  
He’s eighteen when he and Cyrus reconnect again. It’s the day after graduation and he’s come to the school to collect the paintings he’s left behind from years past. Cyrus is tall, but still lanky, and handsome. His eyes shift the white wall in front of him. He fiddled with painting that is placed between his fingers. “Hey.” Is all he says

“Missed you at graduation.” The dark haired boy states with nonchalance.

Before something cold could make its way past his lips he continues.

“Missed you at a lot of things.” His voice is raw, and he is touched at the way he has noticed his absence. 

He is hesitant he wasn’t used to talking to anyone meaningful in his life for a over a year now. He stares at him and Cyrus stares back.! He wants to thank him- he does- but he doesn’t know how to form the right words. But since he is T.J. and he is Cyrus, he talks to him the only way he knows how to get through. 

He is eighteen when his chapped lips smash into Cyrus’s swollen ones. There is a faint taste of cinnamon on his lips and he decides it’s much better than that of weed. He runs his fingers the his brown locks and his other hands is placed on the side of his face. 

He isn’t as happy as he was as a child, but he’s definitely getting there.

He is eighteen and has learned that learning, is apart of growing, and that growing is inevitable. That these people, this person is his closest thing to infinity.


End file.
